Tomorrowland (SPOILERS)

[FaxModem1]

So, just got back from the theater for this movie, and I rather enjoyed it. I recommend it for those who fear for a bad future, but believe we can make a better one.

Our main character is Casey, a teenage girl who is a bit of a dreamer, who is doing everything she can to both keep her father employed at NASA and prevent the dream of spaceflight from dying. She acquires a pin that enables her to see a new world, one in which the future is hopeful, and full of technological wonders.

She quickly gets on a chase to find out more about it, encountering the robot Athena and the aging inventor Frank Walker(George Clooney). They're chased by robots as they try and find a way to Tomorrowland.

A running theme of the movie is Earth and humanity's path to destruction, and attitudes for it. There is also the theme of being special, and your contribution towards the world. The leader of Tomorrowland, Governor Nix, is essentially John Galt from Atlas Shrugged, promising this new world of innovation, discovery, freedom, hope, and creativity. The director and writer Brad Bird has acknowledged that he was an Objectivist in his youth, but has grown out of it. It shows in this work, as Governor Nix is....




SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

the villain causing the world heading towards certain destruction. Frank developed a machine that sees where the world is going, and once it showed that humanity is heading towards extinction, Nix decided to use that device to pump mankind towards that path while Tomorrowland stays safe and secure, not caring that we will all be killed. So, the climax of the movie is doing everything they can to stop the machine from making us go towards self destruction.

The finale of the movie is them rebuilding Tomorrowland, and sending out invitations to the 'dreamers', so that they can build a better world, and make it better.


What were your thoughts?

[Guardsman Bass]

I really enjoyed it, and I loved the ending and overall themes. It can be a little clunky at times with expositional speech, but it's good. I might go see it again.

I especially really liked how they showed that the promise of Tomorrowland was the belief in hope, optimism, and that a better world is possible if we work towards it. It wasn't just better technology - significantly better technology didn't prevent Tomorrowland from turning into a grim, fearful place under Nix where discovery/exploration withered (as shown by the rusted ruins of the rocket launch area), a symbolic walled community holding off the rest of humanity through murderous androids. FaxModem1 mentioned Nix as a John Galt style figure, and the movie actually can serve as a critique of that - Nix trying to create an area walled off from the miseries and darkness of the rest of mankind out of the best and brightest failed, diminishing Tomorrowland in the process.

[FaxModem1]

So, when was the device that Frank made invented? If Nix was the one that turned it against Earth, how far back is he supposed to have influenced history?

[Paolo]

Saw it as well. Couldn't help feel like Dr. Ball, MD sitting through it. Especially the ending.
Spoiler

Seriously? Inspiration? That's how you're going to save the world? You've got teleporters, tachyons, AI and advanced robotics. Produced at urban scale, for Chrissakes! Not to mention all the implications for science and engineering, energy and logistics of having any one of those things in normal, everyday operation.

[Guardsman Bass]

So, when was the device that Frank made invented? If Nix was the one that turned it against Earth, how far back is he supposed to have influenced history?

It looked like Frank was a teenager when they exiled him from Tomorrowland, so maybe from the late 1960s/early 1970s onward. That would fit with the Grand Opening being cancelled.

[Adam Reynolds]

Thoroughly enjoyed it overall. I also thoroughly enjoyed the fact that it was a somewhat rare positive take on the future rather than the far more common dystopian settings. And unlike say Star Trek, it did so without giving me a feeling that there was something off about the setting that the characters weren't seeing(probably because the characters pointed it out themselves).

I was somewhat surprised that it got so many negative reviews by critics. Though reading several, they actually are positively negative, oddly rather like the movie. The main criticism seems to be with the ending being somewhat flat and not living up the the buildup combined with a general dislike of Damon Lindelof. I thought it was fine overall and that the themes more than made up for whatever shortcomings it had.

Though all of the actors did well, I have to say that Raffey Cassidy as Athena stole the show. She held up against George Clooney quite impressively for her age.

So, just got back from the theater for this movie, and I rather enjoyed it. I recommend it for those who fear for a bad future, but believe we can make a better one.

This completely sold me on seeing it. So thanks.

So, when was the device that Frank made invented? If Nix was the one that turned it against Earth, how far back is he supposed to have influenced history?

It looked like Frank was a teenager when they exiled him from Tomorrowland, so maybe from the late 1960s/early 1970s onward. That would fit with the Grand Opening being cancelled.

That is possibly a bit of genius if one considers the possibility that this is why Kyoto failed in this universe.

Though the age issue is somewhat off. George Clooney was born in 1961. The prologue to the film took place in 1964 with him as a young boy. Though now that I think about this, perhaps he was aging slower than normal due to his time in Tomorrowland.

[FaxModem1]

Or he could have been drinking those 'shakes' that Governor Nix had everyday to keep himself from aging.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Or he could have been drinking those 'shakes' that Governor Nix had everyday to keep himself from aging.

I figured Clooney had had maybe 10 years of slowed aging during his stint at Tomorrowland.

[Adam Reynolds]

Or he could have been drinking those 'shakes' that Governor Nix had everyday to keep himself from aging.

That is what I meant. The fact that Governor Nix referred to them in the context he did implies to me that most citizens of Tomorrowland would drink them.

[FaxModem1]

Ah, I thought you meant there was some sort of time dilation due to it being an alternate dimension or something.

[Zor]

This movie is beautiful and you should see it. Honestly I think you could call it Bioshock for kids.

Zor

[FaxModem1]

Rotten Tomatoes has it at about 49 percent in critic freshness, with a lot of critics finding it problematic that it's either too preachy, focuses on the message too much, or seems to have problems with its plot structure.

Audience approval is at about 59 percent, though.

[Adam Reynolds]

Rotten Tomatoes has it at about 49 percent in critic freshness, with a lot of critics finding it problematic that it's either too preachy, focuses on the message too much, or seems to have problems with its plot structure.

Audience approval is at about 59 percent, though.

I think most had a problem with Damon Lindelof as a writer. Personally I thought it was fine. I think Brad Bird made up for it.

I was thinking about the issue discussed by Governor Nix, that of people today enjoying the apocalypse and how dystopian fiction is a part of that. I actually think that the real reason for this is because the modern world(at least in first world countries that watch Hollywood movies) is so luxurious that we are already approaching a utopia enough that any example of one would feel odd.

I was recently reading The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley and it is striking just how much the global standard of living has been improving in the last century and even decades. Every decade is almost always better than the one that came before. This book is an interesting thing to be reading alongside this film. Though I think he underestimates the problem of resource exhaustion.

[Simon_Jester]

So, when was the device that Frank made invented? If Nix was the one that turned it against Earth, how far back is he supposed to have influenced history?

We know from Athena's recorded last thoughts that Frank was exiled in the 1980s. It is reasonable to assume that the device was constructed some time in the '70s... which is roughly the same time that the Big Bold Optimist portrayals of the future started going out of style, and about the same time that dystopian and grim futures started going into style.

Saw it as well. Couldn't help feel like Dr. Ball, MD sitting through it. Especially the ending.
Spoiler

Seriously? Inspiration? That's how you're going to save the world? You've got teleporters, tachyons, AI and advanced robotics. Produced at urban scale, for Chrissakes! Not to mention all the implications for science and engineering, energy and logistics of having any one of those things in normal, everyday operation.

The ending is portrayed as a first step in a complicated plan. I can think of a lot of reasons why they want to start by galvanizing select individuals around the globe. And to do that step before they start introducing massively advanced technology on a planet where everyone's been having "let's be selfish dickheads because fuck it, we're all doomed anyway" beamed into their brains for thirty or forty years.

It looked like Frank was a teenager when they exiled him from Tomorrowland, so maybe from the late 1960s/early 1970s onward. That would fit with the Grand Opening being cancelled.

That is possibly a bit of genius if one considers the possibility that this is why Kyoto failed in this universe.

Though the age issue is somewhat off. George Clooney was born in 1961. The prologue to the film took place in 1964 with him as a young boy. Though now that I think about this, perhaps he was aging slower than normal due to his time in Tomorrowland.[/quote]Walker was supposedly (as I recall) eleven in 1964, so Clooney is playing a man eight years older than himself. That's within the range of reasonable, I think.

Clooney was a good choice for this role, because the main character is about sixty, still active, dynamic, decisive... but very cynical. He can do all of those things convincingly.

This movie is beautiful and you should see it. Honestly I think you could call it Bioshock for kids.

Bioshock is isolated utopia gone horribly wrong. Tomorrowland is isolated utopia gone fixably wrong. Big difference, and not just 'for kids.'

[Terralthra]

So, when was the device that Frank made invented? If Nix was the one that turned it against Earth, how far back is he supposed to have influenced history?

We know from Athena's recorded last thoughts that Frank was exiled in the 1980s. It is reasonable to assume that the device was constructed some time in the '70s... which is roughly the same time that the Big Bold Optimist portrayals of the future started going out of style, and about the same time that dystopian and grim futures started going into style.

What? Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, A Clockwork Orange...?

[Adam Reynolds]

So, when was the device that Frank made invented? If Nix was the one that turned it against Earth, how far back is he supposed to have influenced history?

We know from Athena's recorded last thoughts that Frank was exiled in the 1980s. It is reasonable to assume that the device was constructed some time in the '70s... which is roughly the same time that the Big Bold Optimist portrayals of the future started going out of style, and about the same time that dystopian and grim futures started going into style.

What? Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, A Clockwork Orange...?

It was more a general cultural change than it was a specific work. While those books obviously were all written before this, the general cultural shift in America has been towards a darker portrayal of the future. This occurred in the mid 1970s at around the same time the Apollo program ended. Neil Degrasse Tyson's "We Stopped Dreaming" speech is largely about this issue.

[Simon_Jester]

So, when was the device that Frank made invented? If Nix was the one that turned it against Earth, how far back is he supposed to have influenced history?

We know from Athena's recorded last thoughts that Frank was exiled in the 1980s. It is reasonable to assume that the device was constructed some time in the '70s... which is roughly the same time that the Big Bold Optimist portrayals of the future started going out of style, and about the same time that dystopian and grim futures started going into style.

What? Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, A Clockwork Orange...?

It's not so much that this class of fiction didn't exist prior to, oh, the late '60s and the '70s.

It's that it began to deeply penetrate the public awareness during the '70s and became one of the dominant visions of what the future might look like, in a way it previously had not. And, conversely, that Big Bold Optimist visions (as opposed to "we will still be small and cramped and nasty people, just with flashier equipment") were going out of style.

Remember, the idea isn't that the "big evil building" beaming doom-and-gloom thoughts into everyone's head created the idea that something was fundamentally wrong with the world, or that things could be doomed. It just caused people to accept this idea, gave them the impulse to spread and popularize it more than would already have happened anyway, and to stop feeling like they needed to sacrifice and struggle to prevent the terrible fate: "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die."

[FaxModem1]

One thing I wondered was what the rest of the population of Tomorrowland thought of all this. Were they supportive in Nix's plan to wipe out all of humanity, were they aware of this, or were they just scared to go back to the scary savage world that Nix showed them would die in a few decades, even if they tried their hardest to change it?

[Simon_Jester]

The viciousness of Nix's robot police suggests that he may have been ruling through fear.

Alternatively, there's a good chance they simply didn't know what was going on, and tacitly accepted Nix's word that the world they'd left behind was self-destructing, since it's not like it'd be obvious what the "big evil building" was doing.

It is a bit frustrating that we never really saw the population of Tomorrowland- we saw the fictional advertisement version of them thanks to the pin, but we never saw them going about their lives.

[Adam Reynolds]

The viciousness of Nix's robot police suggests that he may have been ruling through fear.

I thought the robot police were only used on Earth. Weren't the guards in Tomorrowland human?

Alternatively, there's a good chance they simply didn't know what was going on, and tacitly accepted Nix's word that the world they'd left behind was self-destructing, since it's not like it'd be obvious what the "big evil building" was doing.

This seems more likely than a full on police state.

It is a bit frustrating that we never really saw the population of Tomorrowland- we saw the fictional advertisement version of them thanks to the pin, but we never saw them going about their lives.

This movie seems to me like something that had a great deal left on the cutting room floor. This was the downside to the element of mystery that made up the early story.

[Simon_Jester]

The viciousness of Nix's robot police suggests that he may have been ruling through fear.

I thought the robot police were only used on Earth. Weren't the guards in Tomorrowland human?

Hard for me to say. Did we ever see one bleed or anything?

Alternatively, there's a good chance they simply didn't know what was going on, and tacitly accepted Nix's word that the world they'd left behind was self-destructing, since it's not like it'd be obvious what the "big evil building" was doing.

This seems more likely than a full on police state.

Or it could be both- Nix could have established that he has the power to rule by force and exile those who do not comply with his desires, despite those desires presented as necessary for the survival of Tomorrowland. His ability to force Frank Walker into exile, despite Walker clearly being a great inventor, just because Walker has become a 'troublemaker,' suggests that he has obtained this kind of power.

Plus, there is foreshadowing that Nix doesn't really think like a true Plus-Ultra Tomorrowland citizen from the very start. I mean really, a kid walks into his exhibition with a jetpack, even a semi-functional one, and he just curls his lip and sends him away?

That is not the spirit of Verne, Edison, Tesla, and Eiffel.

It is a bit frustrating that we never really saw the population of Tomorrowland- we saw the fictional advertisement version of them thanks to the pin, but we never saw them going about their lives.

This movie seems to me like something that had a great deal left on the cutting room floor. This was the downside to the element of mystery that made up the early story.[/quote]

[Zor]

Plus, there is foreshadowing that Nix doesn't really think like a true Plus-Ultra Tomorrowland citizen from the very start. I mean really, a kid walks into his exhibition with a jetpack, even a semi-functional one, and he just curls his lip and sends him away?

That is not the spirit of Verne, Edison, Tesla, and Eiffel.

The way I figure it, it ties into that line said by Hugo "What if there was a place where the best and brightest could go and not be constrained by politicians, companies and bureaucrats in their work". They did find such a place and worked to build their society. The problem is that even this huge think-tank of super geniuses could not do without politicians and bureaucrats. They needed people who could sit down and manage the various Plus-Ultra's various projects and programs. Those inventors needed people to make sure that crops were sown and harvested, that they had raw materials and tools to build and invent with and to process them, to oversee the creation and expansion of Infrastructure and the construction of that huge city, balance the budget and managing the various bits of day-to-day politics once they got a decent population up. They did not want to do that stuff themselves, that stuff would be a distraction from inventing robots and flying cars.

As such they elected some representatives whom they had them hire some bureaucrats and managers to oversee and administrate their extradimensional colony. Most of which, by the way would probably have been decent hard working men and women who believed in Plus-Ultra's vision and would gladly work to see it fulfilled even if they were indirectly involved in the process. Nix was among them and a good administrator (and as such good at making alliances and cultivating support for himself), but was always on the cynical side of things. He was not interested in inspiration but rather in usable final products with practical applications.

Most likely he would have remained a minor player in the internal politics of Tomorrowland if things had more smoothly, but they did not. Then they built the monitor and saw the likely future becoming worse and worse. This caused a stir and allowed Nix to rise to power and eventually consolidate his hold on things. Most likely he managed to get into power by saying something to the effect of "we need strong leadership to avert this coming crisis" and probably even believed as much and honestly tried to do so early on in his tenure of power, though he gave up on that as he saw things were getting more and more hopeless, but what he cared about more than that was power. He used his powers as governor to snuff out resistance, exiling those who would not bend to his will and submit or were useful scapegoats and cowing the remainder into line.

Zor

[Simon_Jester]

Hm. A very credible analysis. My compliments.

[AniThyng]

Appearently it's not doing so well box office wise...

http://www.slashfilm.com/tomorrowland-box-office/

Brad Bird‘s Tomorrowland was always a gamble. Sometimes gambles pay off big, other times they don’t. Now it seems, despite the combination of an Oscar-winning director, a proven box-office star and a high-concept, Disney-approved idea, Tomorrowland will end up losing Disney somewhere around $140 million. Read more about the Tomorrowland box office below.

The Hollywood Reporter reported on the Tomorrowland box office news. According to their piece, the film’s budget was $180 million and marketing cost $150 million. At the moment, the film has grossed $170 million globally, which puts it roughly $160 million in the hole. It still has time to play and open in international markets though, hence the approximate $140 million loss.

So why didn’t the film hit? There are a ton of reasons. Reviews were mixed, adults may have thought the film was a kids movie, and kids may have thought it looked like an adult movie. It opened over the competitive Memorial Day weekend in the U.S. against two surprise hits, Mad Max Fury Road and Pitch Perfect 2. Plus, there’s the sad reality many people don’t take risks when going to a movie anymore. Especially one they don’t hear universally good things about (and, even then, not always).

And really, that’s the worst thing about Tomorrowland’s box office. It’s another potential argument against original content in Hollywood. While I didn’t particularly like the film, many did, and I did like that it tried to be something new and different. On paper, it’s the kind of movie – like a Back to the Future or Star Wars or Ghostbusters – that at the time was original, high concept, and a potential franchise starter. Hopefully, despite the financial disappointment of Tomorrowland, Disney and the other studios still keep trying at least some of these films.

As for Disney, don’t worry about them. This is their first financial disappointment since The Lone Ranger in 2013. Plus they’ve already had Cinderella and Avengers: Age of Ultron hit this year, Inside Out later this month will be big, not to mention Star Wars: The Force Awakens among many others. Their business model allows for the occasional miss.

Do you think history will be kind to Tomorrowland?

[FaxModem1]

Remind me, just how does the foreign market count, because if you go by the world gross, they've already made their production costs back. Or is it only domestic that matters?